Confessions of a Wino

When I am in a really good mood, my Opus Dei style self-flagellation is a mooch through the wine aisle at Sainsbury’s. Brings me back down to depression with a bump. Yard after yard of unremitting boredom. Branded wines at prices that, once you have removed duty, VAT and cost of shipping, indicate an investment of around $0.20 in the actual wine. It’s a bit like reading a John Major biography. Grey, grey, and thrice grey. Where is the Edwina Currie moment? Could this Yali “Gran Reserva” Carmenere (sic) be the money shot? At £9.99 for a Sainsbury wine, it better explain itself.

(more…)

It is all too easy to be sniffy about the major wine brands when you’ve had your nose in the books of Parker and Robinson.  But have you tried anything from Chilean producer Concha y Toro lately?  Or the sub brands Cono Sur and Casillero del Diablo?  Interesting stuff and generally high quality, but in the UK, I remember the Australians as being first in the queue to bring wine to the proletariat via supermarket and pub alike.

Aside from the ubiquitous Jacob’s Creek, I recall Hardy’s as being a brand leader. So when my neighbour, Peter, brought a bottle of Varietal Range Chardonnay round to my barbie, I was first insulted, then dismissive and finally intrigued.  Obviously, in Peter’s presence I sniffed at it, parked it in the corner and turned to open a bottle of something exclusive and French (albeit cheap and ropey).

Curiosity got the better of me this evening and I opened the bottle.

(more…)

I’ve got my comeuppance for slagging off Mark Hughes.  Man City announced that the UEFA Cup quarter final home leg would be a “reward for the fans” and tickets were priced at only £5 so “ordinary fans” could come and watch.  I am obviously not an ordinary fan since, despite numerous calls to the ticket office (engaged tone) the match is sold out and I have to watch on some backwater internet channel.  Shame – I am in Manchester on 16 April when the town turns into a Hamburger for a night.

So perhaps I should be more complimentary about people I have never met.

Everyone knows that it is impossible to mass produce and mass market a decent wine – especially a Pinot Noir.  Trouble is, nobody told Alfred Hurtado.  His Chilean Cono Sur brand is taking over the world and rightly so.

(more…)

At some point in your life, birthdays stop being beacons shining light on a promising future and instead become lamp posts illuminating yesterday’s gloomy streets.  A time to look back longingly at your youth and wonder what might have happened if you hadn’t bought that Ford Escort with the faulty brakes, or kissed that fat bird with dentures behind the bike sheds at school.

But the lacerations eventually healed and I was able once again to enjoy eating the sweets of my generation without the nightmare of that mousetrap snog to haunt my tongue.

(more…)

More from my flirtatious world tour of Pinot Noir, and this one came in a Sunday Times Wine Club Pinot Noir mixed case at £69.99 (the case, not the bottle).

Is Pinot Noir really so fickle?  My recent experience says that many areas of the world are successfully bedding this sex kitten of a grape.  Adolfo Hurtado has certainly put a notch on his bedstead.  For he’s a jolly good fellow!

(more…)

I started this blog on a South American theme and I am happy to keep that going for a short while because the current exchange rates are making S. American wines superb value for money for us UK winos.

I am a fairly new member of The Wine Society, (HQ at Stevenage in the UK). My first experience was of two bottles of Ch. Kirwan at a very reasonable price but sadly very badly corked.

I am happy to say that following a swift refund (no need to return the bottles) the service and wine quality since then has been excellent and I have continue to buy (er.. I mean invest….)

Recently, I have focussed particularly on S. American wines partly because of the value and partly because of a Wine Society promotion.

So this is how I encountered Cono Sur Signature, El Centinela, Sauvignon Blanc 2006 priced at £7.95 direct from the Wine Society.  This wine from the Casablanca Valley in Chile is a classic example of why you should buy wines from South America right now.

(more…)